Meeting with the Commish

Just before the holidays, the new Commissioner of Education, Deborah Gist, met with high school principals to discuss her strategic plan and recent initiatives that will impact educators and families across the state. For those of you who don’t know, the Commissioner has made a number of decisions which could have far-reaching implications for how schools are structured, including ending seniority as the determining factor for open positions in a district, mandating a revised evaluation system where teachers are evaluated by administrators annually and an adoption of national standards in math and English. All of these components are part of her Race to the Top application, President Obama’s educational initiative which will provide millions of federal dollars to forward thinking states. There have been many articles over the past month about the Commissioner’s vision for Rhode Island and the Race to the Top application.

When principals met with Commissioner Gist, we asked her questions which touched on the future and her support for existing initiatives like:

· What supports will RIDE provide to principals and district leadership in regards to implementation of the Educator Evaluation System Standards and RI Educator Code of Responsibility?
· What is the feasibility of funding for schools for deepening the secondary reform efforts?
· What can principals expect in the January letters regarding the Commissioner’s Review Visits? Will schools be approved or not approved? What will come next?
· What is the feasibility of funding for schools for performance incentives for teachers and administrators?

In answering questions on a variety of topics, it became clear that Commissioner Gist expects to set out a general direction for districts and then to have each district work it out in the way they best see fit, similar to the way we have developed our diploma systems. Commissioner Gist’s theory of action makes sense but I wonder about capacity to take on more (re-aligning to national standards, continuing the development and student-supports of our PBGR system, an evaluation system where three or four administrators must evaluate every teacher every year), all in the face of the fiscal reality which will necessitate cuts to staff at all levels. This is in addition to the (lengthy) negotiations that will have to take place between the unions and districts on these new systems and their impact on contracts. Don’t get me wrong, much of what the Commissioner is proposing is needed and will provide benefits to kids K -12. But at the heart of most school reform initiatives is a somewhat flawed assumption that educators can do more within the same time and resource constraints. I’m not talking about pay but the notion that we continue to operate under the same institutional structures that were created a century ago for different educational ends. That ancient structure does not facilitate the types of changes we need to make in education today. If we’re going to blow up our current system, fine, but the student and teacher school day as we know it, needs to change as well.